Dark Souls 2 director aims to make sequel more "straightforward" and "understandable"

Dark Souls 2's new director Tomohiro Shibuya has said he would like to make From Software's sequel "more straightforward and more understandable" than its predecessors.

The statement came out of an interview with Edge where Shibuya noted his and co-director Yui Tanimura's approach to the sequel would be shaped by their specific characters. "I personally am the sort of person who likes to be more direct than subtle," said Shibuya.

This raised concern among many fans as Dark Souls and its predecessor Demon's Souls are contingent upon their vagueness that adds a sense of mystery to the world. "You'll never discover everything about Dark Souls, because it is impossible," said Rich Stanton in his essay Becoming the Dark Soul, where he documented his exploits in attaining the game's hardest trophy; to acquire all trophies.

"The game has been released for just over a year, and despite an incredibly dedicated community there are things we don't know and will never know," he continued. "I'm not just talking about lore. Vagrants are rare enemies that spawn in your world, and will often one-shot you, because of another player dropping lots of stuff in theirs. Or dying on their way back to a bloodstain full of souls and humanity. Or maybe it's linked to something else. We don't know."

Will Shibuya and Tanimura compromise this in an effort to expand the audience? Will we now longer get epic pranks from previous director Hidetaka Miyazaki (who is still on board as a supervisor)? Does the audience even need expanding after Dark Souls already sold over a million copies in the West as of this spring (i.e. before the PC version and the Artorias of the Abyss DLC came out)? That certainly made it popular enough to get a sequel announced at the VGAs. Or maybe the whole thing really was just too confusing with some of its core concepts like "humanity" poorly explained in its tutorial.

So what do you all think about this? Should Dark Souls be more clear, or is it fine as it is?